Live

Some Velvet Morning, Tree Finger, Life In Film - Bad Dream

Matt Harrold 13/02/2007

Well it's Valentines Day eve and it seems the world and its wife is off making plans for getting all romantic, for there's only a small crowd packing out the upstairs bar of Catch. A mixture of the band's friends and family for the most part with the occasional stranger walking in on the off chance they'll be able to say one day “I caught such and such when they were playing to an empty room”. The sort of smug bastards who will always try and trot out a story that's one better then everyone else's.

Some Velvet Morning three piece affair kick off the affair with a game of guess the influences. One moment they'd re-jigged the opening bass line to BRMC's 'Spread Your Love' and then a few songs later you could have sworn that Desmond Lambert rifting would of fitted in perfectly with an Oceansize song. It doesn't help that his vocals, sound a bit too close to the god farther of MOR: Sting. Though to the band's credit they've managed to meld a few catchy tunes out of the mix which peeks in the form of last song 'Losing My Mind', a swamp blues number with peeling guitar rifts treading water of the quick sand bass line.

Up next is a complete antithesis to what went on before. Treefinger are loud and not in the screaming death metal kind of way. What the crowd was faced with last night was a veritable brick wall of sound which at points could of easily made ears bleed. Drawing on the more cerebral realism of Radiohead, the already mentioned Ocean Size and the post rock of Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Treefinger seemed to leave the crowd somewhat dazed and confused as to what to make of this bastardised prog-rock. Radio friendly territory it was not but you couldn't but help admire lead singer Josh Hall's energetic stomping whilst guitarist Joe Egerton's frantic playing threatened to set his guitar alight at points.

Sadly though like a bad case of premature ejaculation the night peeks too early. Even this reviewer getting propositioned by someone dealing coke in the toilets is more interesting then what Life In Film come up with. Who bring up the ghost of an anaemic Kings of Leon with elements of the Arctic Monkey's and the Kinks thrown in too water it down to a turgid mess. It wouldn't of been so brain numbingly dull if it wasn't for the fact the band hardly changed pace with the songs, making them sound like they ran one slow plod into the next.

While it turned out to be a bit of a Russian Roulette situation as with most nights with the hammer coming down on a loaded chamber where Life In Film are concerned. It wasn't the Guantanamo bay torture fest that sometimes happens with random bands. For which this reviewer is eternally grateful.